The Golden Nuggets of RFPs You're Not Going to Sell On
Posted: Mon Dec 23, 2024 9:35 am
Not long ago a friend told me: "I may have died and not realized it." He complained that he sent messages and no one answered him. I looked at him and told him that I saw him perfectly. Surely his messages were "out of touch"; he was not in tune with his interlocutors.
Recently, in a presentation by a company specializing in inbound marketing, a sophisticated strategy was explained to create "friendships" with the desired interlocutors through social networks, Linkedin in particular, to get to the point where they would want to listen to our business proposal. A bit artificial, don't you think?
What really works
Stop thinking about it. The trick is to tell your interlocutor all india phone number something that interests him. If your interlocutor doesn't respond to you, it's because what you're saying doesn't interest him. Maybe you're out of touch. You don't need to post 15 messages at a rate of 1 per week, or "meet" this person by pretending to be distracted, or "like" his posts without even reading them. A message is enough. If you don't have it, start looking for it, and if you can't find it, start building it.
Have you done your homework?
You're right, it's easy to say it and not so easy to do it. But I can assure you that it is possible. I have managed to get that message, which I call the "key message" on more than one occasion. There are many obstacles. Fundamentally, the problem is that potential customers for a product are not always well chosen. In other words, strategic marketing is not done well. You start from the roof. First you define the product and then you choose the customers. Ideally, we should do it the other way around: first you choose your customers, identify the key message that will make them raise their eyebrows and then you define the product that you can sell by presenting it with that key message. Magic.
Let's see how we get out of this
But let's get back to the real world. You are where you are and what's done is done. You have a product and you want to improve your sales. Of course you can improve all your sales processes. But it is very likely that the great source of improvement comes from a more strategic part of marketing: identifying "insights", seeing where the customer is hurting, identifying their needs, getting to know them better. The golden nuggets of marketing. This is where many projects fail.
This whole introduction, which has gotten a bit out of hand, was to present the motivation for this article. I want to encourage you to be in good spirits and make good proposals in cases where you are almost certain not to win. Please keep reading, don't leave me now, the best part is coming.
Recently, in a presentation by a company specializing in inbound marketing, a sophisticated strategy was explained to create "friendships" with the desired interlocutors through social networks, Linkedin in particular, to get to the point where they would want to listen to our business proposal. A bit artificial, don't you think?
What really works
Stop thinking about it. The trick is to tell your interlocutor all india phone number something that interests him. If your interlocutor doesn't respond to you, it's because what you're saying doesn't interest him. Maybe you're out of touch. You don't need to post 15 messages at a rate of 1 per week, or "meet" this person by pretending to be distracted, or "like" his posts without even reading them. A message is enough. If you don't have it, start looking for it, and if you can't find it, start building it.
Have you done your homework?
You're right, it's easy to say it and not so easy to do it. But I can assure you that it is possible. I have managed to get that message, which I call the "key message" on more than one occasion. There are many obstacles. Fundamentally, the problem is that potential customers for a product are not always well chosen. In other words, strategic marketing is not done well. You start from the roof. First you define the product and then you choose the customers. Ideally, we should do it the other way around: first you choose your customers, identify the key message that will make them raise their eyebrows and then you define the product that you can sell by presenting it with that key message. Magic.
Let's see how we get out of this
But let's get back to the real world. You are where you are and what's done is done. You have a product and you want to improve your sales. Of course you can improve all your sales processes. But it is very likely that the great source of improvement comes from a more strategic part of marketing: identifying "insights", seeing where the customer is hurting, identifying their needs, getting to know them better. The golden nuggets of marketing. This is where many projects fail.
This whole introduction, which has gotten a bit out of hand, was to present the motivation for this article. I want to encourage you to be in good spirits and make good proposals in cases where you are almost certain not to win. Please keep reading, don't leave me now, the best part is coming.